My Left Foot

To drive a rally car, you have to unlearn what you were taught at driving school.

Your typical gravel pit is about as aesthetically pleasing as John Goodman in high heels and a miniskirt. Tim O'Neil, however, has found a pit charming enough to be welcome in a Martha Stewart catalog. Tucked away 10 miles from the picturesque northern New Hampshire town of Littleton is the Mona Lisa of gravel pits, principally because the surrounding hills are covered with lush New England hardwoods, while the vistas leading to the pit's entrance would do any national park proud.

To O'Neil, a 42-year-old one-time VW factory rally driver, this particular gravel pit not only is scenic but also represents a dream come true and is home to the Team O'Neil Car Control Center. I'd driven 750 miles from our Ann Arbor headquarters to take part in a $2950 three-day driving school that promised to teach the art of driving cars fast on slick surfaces.

O'Neil started his school in 1996 after 15 years of rally driving and five years of part-time instructing. What you first notice about him is that he's not the typical lithe, compact, brooding racing driver. He's more linebacker, with a broad head, thick neck, powerful shoulders, and quick smile. Before O'Neil taught driving, he ran a garage, but he definitely looks as if he grew up hauling logs out of the White Mountains-the main local industry. When he says "kah" in his thick New England accent, it sounds very much like Click and Clack of NPR's Car Talk fame.

On the first morning of the rally racing school, four students (maximum class size is six) met O'Neil for breakfast at a local diner where he explained the major driving technique he was going to teach us. It's called left-foot braking, and it involves using that particular foot to operate the brake while simultaneously using the right one to operate the throttle. Driving schools will order students to perform most of the braking before the turn. Here, we were instructed to do the opposite: Turn first, then apply the brakes, but don't lift off the gas. This is like asking a righty to sign an autograph left-handed.

For 99 percent of us, left-foot braking is a kind of automotive heresy, the equivalent of telling a kid to talk to strangers. The idea is to use the brake to prevent the front end from washing out (understeer) and to coax the rear end to swing wide (oversteer). Basically, you're trying to fishtail the car around a turn. If you've ever watched a rally, you've seen those drivers sliding their cars through turns. "Think of the brake as you would a boat rudder," suggests O'Neil.

A word of caution: After you've read this, do not run out and give it a go on the first dirt road you come to. The brief explanation offered here does not qualify as a substitute for the intricacies taught in the course.

The students ranged from experienced drivers to a retired 62-year-old banker who simply announced, "I never slid a car before." O'Neil teaches rally techniques and offers a one-day basic car-control class for $200, as well as training for security guards. Two instructors are on hand, O'Neil and Chuck Long, and one of them is always in the car with a student on the skidpad.

By 11 that morning we were doing our first exercise on a 200-foot flat skidpad covered with gravel. For this introduction to left-foot braking, we drove in circles and were told to hold the steering wheel at a fixed angle, keeping our right foot pressed on the gas, left on the brake-using it to tuck in the front end and tighten the car's turn.

Although at first we all instinctively lifted off the gas as the car picked up speed and started to push wide, after a few laps we got the feel for the technique. Every half-hour or so, we stopped so the skidpad could be regraded and watered.

After a break for lunch and a chalk talk in the rustic log-cabin classroom, we moved onto a larger gravel pad. This one is adjacent to the skidpad but is much larger, about 300 yards long and 50 yards wide. An offset slalom course awaited.